Thankful Garden Thursday

Snowball here today with our garden post.  We are grateful that our yard is full of lovely flowers which draw bees and butterflies and hummingbirds!  Bees are so important to our food system - no bees, no food.  Honey bees are in serious decline right now.  We use only organic fertilizer and no pesticides to protect all the bees and wildlife.

We are thankful that the previous owners of our land were landscapers and gardeners - so much of what we have now in the yard was planted and tended to by them

 

Gerber Daisy in our planters

Strawflowers

A bee in the Phlox

 To learn more about how to save our bees click here.

Shasta Daisy

P.S. Mom has allergy eyes and can't see very well - blurry and runny.  She is going to the Dr. this morning and will be by to visit later.

Happy First of May!

Mom chose Tabitha as our May Queen this year - Tabitha  was surprised and wanted to freshen up a bit before the celebrations begin   Excuse her for a moment while she grooms!

Mom loves this old fashioned holiday.  In her childhood, they would have bonfires the night before and decorate the Maypole with crepe paper and flowers.  At her parochial school they had a special day with a procession of children dressed in their best clothes with one girl chosen to crown the statue of Mary with a garland of flowers.  Mom was actually chosen to do that one year.

She also made May baskets - These are small baskets usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someones doorstep. The giver rings the bell and runs away.

Wishing you all a lovely First Day of May!  Here are some trivia bits about this cool day plus pics of the flowers in our yard!

Our strawberries

 The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe.

Hawthorn blooms

 A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Various Neopagan groups celebrate reconstructed (to varying degrees) versions of these customs on May 1.

Lily of the Valley

On May 1, 1561, King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm. He decided to offer a lily of the valley each year to the ladies of the court. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became custom to give a sprig of lily of the valley, a symbol of springtime, on May 1. 

Azalea with a bumblebee moth

 The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer. (info from Wikipedia)

Dogwood

Garden Thursday with Tabitha

 What Mom???  You woke me up from my nap to host a garden tour???  I will make it a quick one.

Pop has planted broccoli and kale and they seem to be doing great this winter.  It has been a mild one with just a few cold nights in the 20s.
 

 I think the weather has messed up our flowers - the daffodils are coming out of the ground a couple of months early and the phlox is actually blooming!  We even had some forsythia blooms back in December.

That was it for the garden tour folks.  Back to my nap with Woody. Have a good weekend and don't forget that Sunday Jan 13 is Rubber Ducky Day.  Find a rubber ducky and join in the fun!  Feel free to steal the pic on the sidebar for your post or  blog.

Garden Thursday with Minnie

Minnie here today posing with a pumpkin...how lame Mom!  We still have flowers blooming in our garden since it has been so warm this fall but before we get to that...let me update you about Joey.  Mom has begun his cancer treatment and the vet seems to think it will go well.  He also suggested using Renavast for his CRF - it can actually reverse kidney damage!  Mom is excited about that. His treatment is still pretty expensive so she is leaving the Chip-in up for Joey!

Chica had a bad UTI over the weekend but is doing very much better now thank to antibiotics.  She is one tough kitty at 21!!!

OK...now to the garden.  We have one single pink rose in bloom - isn't it lovely?  Pop planted broccoli and kale for the fall.  We still have cosmos and zinnia blooming and even snapdragons!  Who would have thought they would last this long?

Mist still hovering over the ridge across the road.

Cosmos

Zinnia

Most of the trees are past peak but we do still have some color here and there.  We will have warm days for the next three and then the cold comes!!!!  Brrr.  I like it warm.  Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Our driveway

Snapdragon

Tortie Groundhog Garden Thursday!

Phil - photo from groundhog.org

Chica here for Tortie Thursday.   It seems that Punxatawney Phil came out of his lair and saw his shadow this morning so as the legend goes we will have six more weeks of winter.  Well, I don't know about you but we have not had winter yet...so 6 more weeks of no winter sounds good to me!

This is a scene from last year on this day!  We had record snow, cold and lots of winter.

This is this year - we have snowdrops, phlox and daffodils coming up all over the yard and no snow in sight! I'll take this year thank you, more please!

Happy Groundhog Day!  What's in your yard?

Garden Thursday

Hey ya'll, Norm here today.  Us white cats have the best view of the garden from our screen porch.  I am honored to take you on a tour today.  We have mostly potted plants left now that it is getting cooler - pansies, mums, and some of our summer plants are still blooming. Plus we have pumpkins too.  Our birds have been busy at the feeders so we have lots to watch there!  Please visit the other gardens today at Cory's Cat Blog.

Nuthatch

Pansies

Chickadee

Mums

Geraniums, inpatients, begonia

Hope you enjoyed our garden today.  It is also MIA day for cats who have gone on a walkabout.  We had two kitties - Leroy and Bob who disappeared way back years ago and we never saw them again.  Both were only about six months old when that happened.  We hope some wild animal did not get them cuz they were smallish cats.  They were feral cats so we know no one took them in! Sending purrs to all the MIA cats out there.

Garden Thursday

Chica here today for your garden tour.  We planted flower plus  tomatoes and cukes that all have produced yummy veggies.  Mom loves her sunflowers and planted all colors and sizes.  Her black eyed Susans did well too.

Sunflower

Black eyed Susan

Pop is a big organic gardener and planted all kinds of tomatoes - fun exotic ones - orange ones, ones with deep grooves and big reddish brown ones.  The grapes were sour so we left them on the vine and some critters got them all - we have yet to get any grapes before the critters get them!

Grapes

Pop will be planting our fall crops soon - lettuces, broccoli, spinach and kale.  It was a very hot summer so some things never got going like our pepper plants.  Did you get any produce from your garden?

Please be sure to visit Jonsie and the other garden posts here.  Hope you enjoyed the tour!  Have a super weekend and don't forget Monday is Talk Like a Pirate Day - get your pirate garb on!